Dell Inspiron 9100 FC6 No network!

[RobG]

It worked great on FC5, but now with a fresh install of FC6, my network card doesn't appear to be found at all. I searched here and found one thread dating back to FC2, and decided to go download the driver from Broadcom. It won't install... when you try to run rpmbuild -bb b44.spec, it fails saying can't find /lib/modules/2.6.18-1.2798.fc6xen/build.

Any suggestions? I've never had to deal with the network card not working before so this is very new to me.

Thanks!

Rob

[thinkpositive]

I also have a Dell and have recently loaded FC6. It will not recognize my wireless card but it will let me do a direct connect to the router. Hope someone answers you soon.

[RobG]

Yeah me too. I've already tested Ubuntu 6.10 on it and everything works fine, so if I don't figure this out soon, I'm gonna jump ship...

Rob

[Feenix]

I was trying Zod 6 live to test my wifi and it also did not work. Of all flavors of linux I like fedora the best, my laptop will be fedora if this problem can be worked out with the dell system. :confused: :rolleyes:

[RobG]

What surprises me the most is it works just fine under FC5, but not under FC6. I may end up going back to FC5... at least it worked. I did try Ubuntu the other night, but it's partitioning program is a pain in the butt... unless you're willing to wipe out your entire drive, it's impossible to configure properly. I really like Fedora's ability to just take the free space on your drive and set it up.

Rob

[RobG]

Okay, out of boredom and curiosity, I did a fresh install of FC6 and now the network works! The only thing I did differently was I chose the box to allow the thing to set the hostname via DHCP, which I didn't do last time. Thing is, all it does is set it to localhost.localhost if I do that, which is annoying... I can never get it to retain a hostname.

But anyway, it works now and I'm happy! Waiting for my yum update to finish...

Rob

[thinkpositive]

Okay, out of boredom and curiosity, I did a fresh install of FC6 and now the network works! The only thing I did differently was I chose the box to allow the thing to set the hostname via DHCP, which I didn't do last time. Thing is, all it does is set it to localhost.localhost if I do that, which is annoying... I can never get it to retain a hostname.

But anyway, it works now and I'm happy! Waiting for my yum update to finish...

Rob
That is great Rob! Now help me out here, PLEASE; I have been a MS user for way to long. When I installed FC6 I did click the set host name via DHCP and it the system recognizes that the wireless is there but it will not connect. It continues to ask me for the password, which I have given it. Can you tell me what I am missing?

[RobG]

Wow I sure wish I could help... my Inspiron doesn't have built-in wireless so I've never gotten any wireless cards to work on it. Is it a safe assumption that your wireless works in Windows, but not in Linux?

What program are you using to configure wifi?

Rob

[thinkpositive]

You got it; the machine is a new one for me and when I turned it on Windows recognized the wireless connection, but Linux has not been that smooth. I have been attempting to configure it within FC6; not knowledgable enough right now to do it otherwise.

[RobG]

What program are you using to try to configure it? There is a Wireless Assistant that is part of KDE, assuming it got installed. if you have no network connection, it's helpful if you have the Extras CD, or the DVD so you can get it from there. That may or may not help get things figured out. I'm sure there are other programs for it too, but I'm not aware of 'em. I sure wish Linux supported my Linksys WPC55AG card, but it doesn't. And I haven't quite gotten my Verizon Aircard working either, but I'm close on that one.

Rob

[Feenix]

RobG, their is a way to change the localhost.localhost , but being a newbie I dont know exactly how it is done